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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28532787">A path that we can walk down</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlicienneOfTarth/pseuds/AlicienneOfTarth'>AlicienneOfTarth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire &amp; Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Confessions, F/M, Feelings Realization, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Post ADWD, Post Lady Stoneheart, book canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:48:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,616</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28532787</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlicienneOfTarth/pseuds/AlicienneOfTarth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She was checking the wood when he talked again. “I believe you owe me a story.” He shifted to catch a glimpse of her wounded cheek. “You told me it was a bite.” He waited for her answer, but she turned away, retreating in the darkness.</p><p><em>Stubborn wench, talk to me.</em> “As you wish, I’ll talk alone if this pleases me.”</p><p> </p><p>Jaime finds out about Brienne's wounds.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>177</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>JB Festive Festival Exchange Stocking Stuffers 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A path that we can walk down</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeThemFlying/gifts">SeeThemFlying</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A little extra gift for the wonderful talented SeeThemFlying who encouraged/inspired me to write book canon. I had already written this for you, then I checked your prompts for the exchange and realized that this story fitted two of them, also I couldn't resist because I love "Into my arms" by Nick Cave and here we are.<br/>- My first attempt at writing book canon, bear with me.<br/>- Unbetad(for now, someone answered my prayers) so mistakes are all mine.</p><p>This is my main story for the exchange if you missed it:<br/><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28409694">https://archiveofourown.org/works/28409694!</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The shelter she had found was made of woven branches, designed like spiderwebs, but firmer without a doubt. There was a fire in the middle of the ground, the wench glanced at it, furtively, just half of her face lit by the flames, the one untouched. She still hadn’t said a word, not that he wasn’t used to her silence. He didn’t even miss her voice or so he thought, yet that silence seemed noisy to his own ears and he wanted to end it.</p><p>“You’re duller than I remembered, wench,” Jaime started. “I didn’t mean to spend my watch with a mute.”</p><p>The wench didn’t react to his unpleasantness, they were past that, her eyes didn’t flinch, not even for a second. The outcome of their encounter with Lady Stoneheart had left only wounds, visible or not, and he wondered if she had already regretted meeting him or if her eternal goodness still prevented her that conclusion. That was the first time they were alone; they had been out in search of wood when the storm came. The wench, lately, seemed to reserve her kindness only to the young lad, while that Kyle or Hyle had started unnerving him after their first exchange, so the idea of being alone with her was almost pleasant.</p><p>She was checking the wood when he talked again. “I believe you owe me a story.” He shifted to catch a glimpse of her wounded cheek. “You told me it was a bite.” He waited for her answer, but she turned away, retreating in the darkness.</p><p><em>Stubborn wench, talk to me.</em> “As you wish, I’ll talk alone if this pleases me,” he said, with a half smile; he was short a sword hand, but his tongue was just fine. “I learned a story about Aegon the Unworthy, it will help us to spend the time,” He started, but even though his voice was firm, his mind was restless, making up ways to make her smile. “Do you know The Teats? Pennytree, where we met again, rises between those hills. There are two of them and they’re called like this because they resemble.. you know..”
A snort escaped from the wench’s mouth and he laughed. “So Aegon the Unworthy had a mistress called Barba Bracken, a buxom wench, and when he found the Teats, he called them in her honor. But after that, he wasn’t a very loyal type, as it seems, he found another mistress, a Blackwood this time, a woman called Missy, flat as a boy, following Barba’s judgment and Aegon hearing that, gave Missy the Teats or better Barba’s Teats. That’s why the Blackwoods call them by a name, the Brackens by another.”</p><p>Brienne stayed silent for some seconds. “It’s ridiculous,” she whispered at the end.</p><p>“Don’t be envious, wench, I can conquer a land and call it after your teats if it pleases you,” Jaime said.</p><p>Brienne blushed at that. “I’m not your mistress, Ser, and I fear your land would be plain and with no hills at all.”</p><p>“Ah! See, wench? There’s still spirit in you.” Jaime laughed again, while his cock absurdly stirred in his breeches.</p><p>Brienne shifted toward the fire and he averted his eyes, trying not to flinch at the dirty bandage on her cheek. She looked at his white cloak on the ground, Jaime did too.</p><p>It was covered in bloodstains, evidence of the last slaughter they had shared.</p><p>“I told you I would have soiled it soon enough,” he said to her.</p><p>Brienne ignored him. “There’s a creek at the end of the path, take it there and wash it.”</p><p>“The stains won’t <em>fade.</em>”</p><p>Her eyes met briefly his, then she stood up, taking his cloak from the ground. “Keep the fire going,” she said, before leaving the shelter.</p><p>
  <em>Stubborn stupid wench, you wish. I’ll follow you to the creek.</em>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>The moon was large and bright in the sky, the wind had taken away the clouds and now stars dotted its surface. <em>Another beautiful night.</em> Jaime followed the path, the ground was bare and muddy, the storm had turned into a light rain.</p><p>There was a time, not many moons away, in which Jaime saw his father’s hand everywhere he walked, every place he visited. He saw it in the branches, leaves, walls and mills, he even saw it in the bones of men and animals’ corps. Now that world seemed far away. His father’s hand hadn’t reached that place, neither that forest or the footsteps in the ground, Brienne’s footsteps.</p><p>He followed them.</p><p>She was sitting on a rock, his cloak in her hands. She was washing the piece of cloth with an unnecessary force, her shape large and solid, like a black rock in the middle of the creek. Jaime walked toward her, stopping a few feet away. Only there he could discern the tremor of her shoulders; she wasn’t crying, but her eyes were full of unshed tears.   
The realization hit him, at first glance she had seemed ten years older in Pennytree, but she was still young, she was brave, but still so young.</p><p>Sometimes he mistook her braveness for experience.</p><p>“Talk to me.”</p><p>He was so used to her silence that he felt his chest tightening when she started talking.</p><p>“We were at the Crossroads Inn when the Brave Companions arrived,” Brienne started. “Septon Meribald was with us too.”</p><p>“A Septon?”</p><p>“He guided us to the Quiet Isle.”</p><p>
  <em>From a Septon to a sinner, your company has become poor and hopeless, wench.</em>
</p><p>“How many?”</p><p>“Seven,” she breathed out.</p><p>Jaime felt a pang in his chest. “Go on.”</p><p>“They tried to rape the young orphan, Willow, she was in charge of the Inn and took care of the children, she still does. She is young, but so fierce. I like her and I couldn’t let them. I stepped in.”</p><p>
  <em>Of course she stepped in.</em>
</p><p>“I tried to take time at first, I waited and studied them, I wanted to tire them. Rorge was the first to face me and I was able to slay him at the end, but then Biter..” she said, voice trembling. “Biter crashed into me, he.. he pulled me down, one of his hands was in my hair, the other around my throat and I searched for Oathkeeper, but Oathkeeper was gone,” she paused and Jaime tentatively reached out to touch her neck. He felt her tense under his hand and he almost wanted to pull back. “I tried to fight him, I really did until.. he took my face in his hands and he bit me. I remember his mouth, wider than a bear’s one and his yellow teeth.”</p><p>His fingers tentatively caressed her hair.<em>I shouldn’t have left her alone.</em>“What happened to him, then?”</p><p>“Dead.”</p><p>Jaime swallowed, he had slapped Connington in Harrenhal for her, now he wanted Biter still alive to kill him with his bare hands.</p><p>“Then I woke up with a rope around my wrists, you know the rest."</p><p>“Stoneheart.”</p><p>Silence fell between them for some seconds, he was still touching her when she talked again. “I failed her,” she whispered.</p><p>“She was already dead, Brienne.”</p><p>She shook her head. “Anybody that gets close to me, bad things happen to them. I failed Renly, I failed Lady Catelyn, I failed..”</p><p>“Don’t.” He gripped her nape with more force, putting an end to her words. “You did good, wench, you really did. I’m proud of you,” he told her, but that didn’t seem to relieve her misery. “And I apologize, I should have come with you.”</p><p>She scowled and Jaime wasn’t sure if his words had pleased her. Her shoulders weren’t trembling anymore, but when his hand slid from her nape, curling around her arm, she stood up immediately, cloak in hand, to walk back toward their shelter.</p><p>Jaime followed her.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>There was a time when he was her prisoner, she was his protector. He didn’t have a choice but to follow her. Now there weren’t manacles, no chains around his wrists and yet he wouldn’t have followed anyone else. It was like an invisible rope connected their bodies.</p><p>The wench walked, he followed her.</p><p>He sometimes believed in some kind of path that only he and Brienne could walk down.</p><p>When they reached the shelter, he looked at her laying his cloak in front of the fire, her hands firm, the tremor in her shoulders gone. He wondered for a moment if she would have let him comfort her with her head above his shoulder, his fingers in her hair. The thought was absurd, yet pleasant, a warm thought he wasn’t ready to fathom. When she sat next to the fire, he took the place in front of her. With no grace or gentleness she removed the bandage from her cheek, he wanted to grimace at the sight, but he did not. Jaime had known wounds like that, they came from desperate men, from the scum of the world. His stump hadn’t been a more pleasant vision in those days, but the wench had never backed away, never grimaced.</p><p>She had looked at him, telling him to live.</p><p>“Be gentler, can’t you?” he said harshly. </p><p>When she reached to take a clean cloth, he took it from her fingers, raising it to her face.</p><p>“See, wench? I clean yours, you clean mine.” He wiped the dry blood from her cheek, gently, stopping every time she hissed and starting again when the discomfort left her face. “This scar will be ugly.”</p><p>“One more scar will be welcome, Ser,” she said, a barely audible whisper. “Vanity never belonged to me, beauty neither.”</p><p>
  <em>And yet.</em>
</p><p>“You need to take care of it.”</p><p>She shrugged.</p><p>He grabbed her chin and tilted her face toward him. “Don’t be stubborn.”</p><p>Her eyes pierced into his, <em>her eyes are never desperate, only pretty.</em></p><p>She dismissed his touch, glancing down.</p><p>“You keep rejecting my touch, does it disgust you that much?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You do, does it bother you? Being touched by me?”</p><p>“It’s not that.”</p><p>“What is it, then?” he snapped at her.</p><p>“I just fear to get used to it.”</p><p>Jaime didn’t know how to answer. “What does it mean?”</p><p>“They called me the Kingslayer’s whore,” she said, after some seconds. He stilled at that, trying to find the repulsion on her face. <em>You cleaned the shit and the vomit from me, wench, they bound us together, face to face, of course they called you like that, don’t be surprised or worst disgusted.</em></p><p>“I apologize for that.”</p><p>“They.. they told me they would have been rich if they owned a penny for every time I said your name in my dreams.”</p><p>The cloth slid from his fingers.“You.. have you dreamed of me, wench?”</p><p>“I have.”</p><p>“How many times?”</p><p>“I.. I don’t know, Ser.. several,” she answered, voice trembling.</p><p>“Come here,” he said.</p><p>The wench was surprised when he pulled her in his arms, awkwardly, the force of her body almost knocking him down to the ground. “You can cry, if you want.”
She was restless at first, fighting his grip, until she calmed in his arms. “Cry, wench.”</p><p>“Why, Ser?”</p><p>“Call me Jaime,”he said. “Let me hold you while you cry.”</p><p>Her arms were hesitant until she put them around him. He held her then, his hand buried in her hair and he had to stretch his fingers, overwhelmed by the sensation. The wench’s tears were silent, but he could feel them on his neck. Jaime lost the conception of time, he didn’t know how long they stayed like that, but when she raised her head, looking at him like she had never done before, he had no choice but to kiss her.</p><p>Her lips were soft, her kisses tender. Jaime tried to be gentle, retreating every time his beard grazed her wounded cheek, but Brienne whimpered at the loss and he closed the distance again and again, until she was the one pulling back.</p><p>“What are you doing?” she asked abruptly.</p><p>“I’m kissing you.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because it's what I want.”</p><p>She widened her eyes and he almost wanted to laugh. “Is it my answer good enough, My Lady?”</p><p>He kissed her neck then, shutting down her doubts. “This can’t be true.” she whispered between delicate moans.</p><p>“I promise you it is.” His hand caressed her breasts under her tunic until his palm rested against her heart to feel it thundering under his fingertips. “It’s real. This time we won’t meet each other in a dream.” When he made her lie down on his cloak scattered on the ground, her own fingers grabbed his tunic, unable to move.</p><p>She just wanted to keep him close.</p><p>She trembled when his hand traveled between her legs ad Jaime stopped to gauge her reaction. “I won’t hurt you,” he whispered.</p><p>“My Septa told me it would have hurt,” she said in a small voice that he had never heard before. The wench was scared, the thought was absurd, but overwhelming nonetheless. “You’re ready to fight a whole army, but you’re afraid of being loved, My Lady?”</p><p>“Being loved?”</p><p>“I’ll show you how, if you let me.”</p><p>“I wasn’t made for love. I lived all my life getting ready to face armies, I have no fear with a sword in my hand, but I grew up knowing that I would never experimented this kind of pleasure, this kind of love. In front of this I’m unarmed.”</p><p>“Love can hurt, wench, that can be true, but mine will not,” he said, his hand caressing her brows. “I’ll be gentle, I promise you.”</p><p>“I trust you.”</p><p>Make love to her was like walking on a frozen lake that first time; small, delicate steps and too afraid to break its surface.</p><p>He got her ready with only one finger inside her. Brienne held her breath at the first intrusion and he stilled his arm until she grabbed his wrist and he kept moving. He didn’t care about his pleasure, the way she arched on his cloak, the soft moans from her mouth, her long legs bending when he hit the right spot were better than any kind of pleasure. When she was ready, he entered her slowly, his eyes fixed on hers, his left hand cupping her cheek and he just wanted to be able to frame her face, using his missing hand.</p><p>He wanted to be whole again, but only for her pleasure.</p><p>He stopped when he saw tears at the corner of her eyes. “Does it hurt?” he whispered, resting his forehead against hers. The wench shook her head, her pale locks brushing his forehead, her large hands grabbing his thighs to make him move again. “I didn’t think it could have been that beautiful.”</p><p>He kissed her then and felt his heart in his throat when one of her hand grabbed his stump, holding it closer to her, between her breasts, until she came.</p><p>He did too, seconds later, following her like he was used to.</p><p>He could feel her heart beating fast against the skin of his stump, her breathing calming down in his ear.  That night he hid his face in the crook of her neck while Brienne held him.</p><p>He didn’t remember the last time someone had done that.</p><p>“I think we soiled the cloak again, wench.”</p><p>He felt her shifting under his body. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“I’m not.”</p><p>Small stains of blood, her blood, covered the surface. “I’ll wash it again,” she said, blushing.</p><p>“No, I want to keep it this way.”</p><p>The wench scowled, confused, and he repressed a laugh.</p><p>He covered their bodies with a fur and fell asleep in her arms.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please, let me know if you liked it.💞</p></blockquote></div></div>
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